The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 18, 1924, Page 1

THE DAILY WORKER RAISES THE STANDARD FOR A WORKERS AND FARMERS’ GOVERNMENT Vol. II. No. 129. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: in Chicago, by mail, $3.00 per year. Outside Chicago, by mail, $6.00 per year. E DAILY WORKER. Entered as Second-class matter September 21, 1923, at the Post Office at Chicago, Illinois under the Act of March 8, 1879. MONDAY, AUGUST 18,,1924 Published Daily except Sunday by THE DAILY*WORKER PUBLISHING CO., 1118 W. Washington Bivd., Chicago, Il. Communist Candidates. For President: WILLIAM Z. FOSTER. For Vice-President: BENJAMIN GITLOW. Price 3 Cents IDLE MINERS HAUNT CITY STREETS Clothing Workers Back Co U. S. WAR LORD PREPARES TO TURN OVER COMMAND TO HIS SUCCESSOR General John J. Pershing, or “Blackjack” as he is familiarly if not ten- derly referred to by the privates in the regular army is about to surrender his post as Chief of Staff to Maj. Gen. John Hines (right) and retire from active duty. Pershing is oredited with responsibility for the mobilization day plans which have caused so much excitement thruout the country. AS WE SEE IT By T. J. O"FLAHERTY (E only way to restore the coal mining industry in the central competitive. field to its former vigor, is to cut wages, declares the Chicago Journal of Commerce in a: lengthy editorial. .A Journal reporter, after making a study of the “black dia- mond” industry, very likely in. the offices of the coal operators, shows that coal operators are deserting the | unionized sections in favor of those fields where the United Mine Work- ers of America have not been able to make any inroads. This results in the closing down of mines in the or- ganized regions, with the inevitable consequence of unemplbyment or part- time work and increasing production in those sections where the workers have not the protection of a union. hee solution of the problem is not te what the Journal of Commerce suggests. Granting that the Illinois, }indiana, Ohio and Western Pennsyl- ‘‘vania mines were silly enuf to accept ‘the advice of the coal-operators, to ltake a wage cut bringing their pay ito the level of the non-union miners in Kentucky and West Virginia, what is there to prevent the scab-operators of he non-union regions from handing \their employes another cut, which would give the so-called union oper- jators another excuse for demanding ‘that their employes stand for another lash in wages? This is a vicious circle which the miners cannot afford to travel in. ‘ i ‘ROM the point of view of the op- { erators the suggestion of the Chicago Journal of Commerce is full of wisdom. Cut wages, cut wages! ;That is their cry. But from the work- ers’ viewpoint there is another and a ‘peter way to meet the problem, and @ serious problem it certainly is. It takes no genius to realize that the \best way to solve the problem is to organize the unorganized fields, and establish the six-hour day thruout the entire industry. But John L. Lewis ‘and the reactionary officials of the miners’ union are working hand in shand with the coal operators, and in- jptead of devoting their attention to fighting the enemy, the coal barons, they are spending thousands of dol- lars making war on union radicals. 'HE Jacksonville agreement gave 4 the miners nothing but a scrap of paper. It is true the coal operators ywho come under its provisions are ‘obliged to pay their employes the junion scale when the mines are op- med but there is no clause in the con- itract to prevent a coal operator who is running a union mine in Illinois to close down that mine and open up a scab mine in Kentucky or West Vir- ginia. Not alone are the operators bringing misery on thousands of min- (Continued on page 3.) "YINVESTIGATION OF BOB'S CAMP REVEALS GRAFT “Bob” Plays With Old Party Corruption By JAY LOVESTONE. (Fifth Arficle.) In the course of the campaign the LaFollette forces will do much yelling about purity in government. _ The Wisconsin Senator will rail against the tyranny of political machines. Another one of those perennial “final” efforts will be made to elect only good, honest, pro- gressive citizens to office. It is on such a program and under precisely such slogans that LaFollette has captured Wisconsin. Yet, the facts sliow conclu- sively that the Badger state sen- ator has become the political boss only thru the organization of a powerful machine, of a ma- chine as effective as those against which he is now fuming. More than that. LafFollette’s machine in Wisconsin is not and has not been as free from graft and corruption as he would have the world believe. Bribery, secrecy of campaign funds, the support of fake progressives and crooked “honest” men have been part and parcel of the ideal “Wisconsin Plan” of good, clean government. Handled With Silk Gloves. The proof that the fundamental cause for corruption in government is to be found in the private owner- ship of the meas of production and exchange socially used, is afforded by the LaFollette regime in Wisconsin. clal-Democratic Herald, the predeces- the honesty of the individual men at the helm of-the administrative ma- chinery is only a secondary factor in governmental corruption. E When LaFollette was making his entry into practical national politics, he was offored a bribe ranging frgm five to fifteen hundred dollars by United States Senator Philetus Saw- . (Continued on Page 6) 40,000 Illinois Miners Jobless. The number of unemployed miners in the Illinois district is estimated at over 40,000, SPRINGFIELD IS JOBLESS CITY, SURVEY SHOWS Mine Barons Speed Up Few at Work By KARL REEVE (Staff Writer, Daily Worker.) SPRINGFIELD, Ill., Aug. 17. The street corners of Spring- field are cluttered with idle miners who have long since given up the hopeless search for work. Out of eleven thousand min- ers who have worked within a twenty mile radius of this town, fifty-five hundred are complete- ly idle and the remaining min- ers are able to work only one or two days a week. Production Speedéd Up. The mine owners in this district have taken the advice of Frank Far- rington that the miners must speed up production, very seriously, and the few miners working are constantly threatened with discharge if they do not keep production above the non- union level. The Illinois Mine Workers’ Union no longer offers protection to the membership, and those who are. able have drifted away to other industries or migrated to other cities, thus re- ducing the membership of the miners’ organization. Letters are continually being sent to individual miners, over the heads of the union, by the mine owners, badgering the miners to keep up production under threat of dis- missal, Like Plague-Ridden Towns. Nearby mining towns, Divernon, Thayer, Dawson, Riverton and others, present the aspect of plague-ridden towns. The miners in these- camps have been idle for eight months. Last year they were idle for a five months’ stretch, and there is no work in the mines at present, with no prospect of the mines opening in the near future. The stores in these towns, dependent for their existence on the trade of the miners, are fast going to the wall and closing up. They have extended credit to the miners out of necessity for the past eight months, and now, unable to meet their bills longer, are going bankrupt by the dozen. The miners, therefore, are finding it increasingly difficult to buy food on credit, and their destitution is critical. John Watt, secretary-treasurer of the Springfield sub-district of the United Mine Workers of Illinois and candidate for lieutenant governor on the Workers Party ticket, told the DAILY WORKER: “I am glad to see the WORKERS PARTY taking meas- ures to organize the unemployed. The Communists are the only ones who have’a program which will solve the unemployment problem. “The unemployment among the miners will be one of the big issues (Continued on page 2.) Miners! Your Siories! DAILY WORKER publishes today the first of a I series of articles on the especially among the coal miners. reporter, is on the ground getting the first hand facts. This material will appear daily in these columns. But the DAILY WORKER wants to get letters direct from the coal miners themselves; and from workers in What are the jobless conditions con- How do you get along? immediate problems that you face? Write your stories to the Unemployment Editor, the DAILY WORKER, 1113 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, Ill. SEND IN YOUR LETTERS! other industries, fronting you? .| ONE OF THE BYPRODUCTS OF FAMOUS EXCAVATION WHICH EXPOSED KING TUT At last he has been discovered! Richard J. Powers, first president of the American Federation of La- bor, considers Samuel Gompers a foe of law and order and a dan- gerous radical. What has Gompers to live for now since this fossil has burst into the limelight to boost “Silent Cal”? INDICTMENT OF GARVEY BRINGS NEGRO PROTEST By ROBERT MINOR. (Staff Writer, Daily Worker.) NEW YORK, Aug. 17.—An enormous crowd of Negro people gathered in Liberty Hall here this week as an ex- pression of protest against the second effort of the federal au- thorities to send Marcus Garvey, president of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, to prison. An indictment on a two-year- old income tax report, sprung on Garvey in the midst of the second annual convention of the large Negro organization, seems to have been intended to throw a wet blanket on the con- vention. ; It is known that the main business of the convention is the formation of an international “Negro Political Union” of Negroes of the United States, the West Indies, other black- populated islands and the African col- onies where the French, British and Belgian governments are anxious to avoid political agitation among the natives. Garvey Meets Attack.. Garvey met the attack by appealing to the masses of the Negroes of New York's Harlem to come to his support. (Continued on page 3) Send in jobless problem in Illinois, Karl Reeve, our labor What are the ® LW. W. FIGHT BRINGS OUT BiG DIFFERENCES Issues in Court Fight Beginning Tomorrow Issues between the contend- ing factions in the Industrial Workers of the World are gra- dually being brought to light in the various documents being issued on either side. The DAILY WORKER is in receipt of copies of a circular issued by the splitting group, the one that took the quarrel into the capitalist courts, in which the administration is de- nounced as leaning toward re- volutionary affiliations, and the injunction is defended as necessary to avoid the charges of the capitalist press that the Industrial Workers of the World is revolutionary. Rank and File Speaks. The charges of use of “gunmen and gangmen,” as well as the deeper issues involved, are dealt with in a statement issued by the “Rank and File Committee.” Knowing that many of our readers are interested in this important controversy these docu- ments are reproduced. The statement of the secession group, claiming to be the General Ex- ecutive Board, is as follows: Statement of Secessionists. “The General Executive Board have applied fgr an injunction restraining Tom Doyle, Joe Fisher and James Morris from continuing to hold the funds and property of the I. W. W. “This action was decided upon by the General Executive Board after very careful consideration. We were confronted with a condition of affairs that would very seriously affect the general organization, if action had not been taken at once. “Since the election of Doyle and Fisher, General Headquarters has been in the hands of men with little judgment and who by their actions have shown that they have not the slightest consideration for the mem- bership or the future welfare of the I, W. W. as an organization. “Their actions, since they have been in office, betrays them as followers of the Communists. The more we study them, the more we are convinced that they are working hand in hand with the ‘liquidators’ whose program is to control or dissolve the I. W. W. “They have devoted their entire time to peanut politics and building up a machine with which they hope to control the organization from the top. These men have for years prac- tically dictated the policy of I. U. No, 110. Today they control all offices of importance in General Headquarters. “So arrogant have they become that (Continued on page 2) LABOR TROUBLES IN| HONDURAS BRING DOWN AN AMERICAN WARSHIP (Special to The Daily Worker) WASHINGTON, Aug. 17,—Send- Ing an American warship to Hon. duras was not due to a revolution in progress near the capital, but is due to labor troubles, according to admissions by the United States government. An independent American fruit trading concern, the Standard Frult company, had difficulty In getting cheap» enough labor at the port of La Ceiba, and had imported Jamai- can Negroes in the hope of break- Ing the spirit of the native laborers. Thie led to a fight last winter in which one death occurred. The warship is claimed to have now been sent to the port to suggest ad- Justment and continued » As for the revolution, that is a coin- — | Sia. SOCIETY FOR TECH AID SENDS FOURTH GROUP TO ODESSA, RUSSIA Another group of the Agricultural Commune “Red Ray” left for Russia. It is the fourth group of the same commune to leave from Chicago. A veterinary went along with the last group to take care of the live stock which is rapidly increasing in num- ber. The commune is a part of the Soci- ety for Technical Aid to Soviet Rus- It was granted land by the So- viet government in the Odessa dis- trict. A group of the Dairy and Poultry Commune “Herald’ is’ preparing to leave Chicago soon for Chersom Ukrainia, where land was granted this commune by the Soviet government. CHICAGO LABOR BODY EATS BIG DISH OF CROW: Lines Up With Gompers For Small and “Bob” | In spite of an heroic struggle | on the part of its Communist) delegates, the Chicago Federa-| tion of Labor, at its meeting) Sunday, deserted the class| struggle in the political field and went over to the LaFollette-Len Small camp by a vote of 132 to 18. It was by this vote that the federation adopted the recom-| mendation of the resolutions | committee that the organization | endorse the stand of the execu-| tive board of the Illinois State} Federation of Labor, taken last | week, in support of the LaFol-| lette-Wheeler-Small ticket. | Three Wise Men. | The members of the resolutions committee are Anton Johannsen, John | C. Flora, a Socialist, and Charles F.} Wills, circulation manager of “The Federation News,” formerly the New Majority. In order to get the issue squarely before the federation meeting, Dele- gate Jack Johnstone, of the Painters’ | Union, demanded that the whole de- claration be read. This was done. Delegate Johnstone then got the| floor and pointed aut that several years ago, when the National Farm-| er-Labor Party was organized, that President John Fitzpatrick had de- clared that the two old parties were rotten to the core. “In approving this declaration," said Johnstone, “you are going right down into that rotten core.” Dodged Negro Issue. Johnstone then attacked LaFol- lette’s labor record and his attitude towards the Farmer-Labor Party. He also pointed out how he had dodged the Negro question, showing how a Negro delegate had come to the Cleve- land conference but had been refused an opportunity to be heard. Johnstone showed that LaFollette had not attended any of the confer- ences that had endorsed him, that his (Continued 9n page 2) | | | | mmunist Campaign RANK AND FILE AGAINST ‘BOB’ FAVOR FOSTER Amalgamated Members: in Opposition to G. E. B. By MAX SHACHTMAN. Reports are beginning to; come in which show that while the General Executive Board of the Amalgamated Clothing: Workers of America has com- mitted the organization to the broom-and flag of '76 which is: being lugged around the coun- try by LaFollette, the rank and: file is taking an entirely dif- ferent stand. Accustomed to working class independent action on all flelds, the membership of the organi- zation is repudiating the tin Jesus from Wisconsin and is aligning its forces with the can- didates of the Workers Party of America, William Z. Foster for president and Benjamin Gitlow for vice-president. Already a number of locals which have had the opportunity to discuss and take action upon the call of the Workers Party to the rank and file to repudiate the position of the gen- eral executive board, have followed the Communist lead, and done their share towards erasing the stain of LaFolletteism from the escutcheon of a working class organization which has a fighting record behind it. Rank and File for Foster. In Chicago, Local 269, a unit of 1.500 members, went on _ record against LaFollette and indorsed the candidacy of Foster and Gitlow with but one dissenting vote. In New York city, the executive committee of the Italian Pants Makers’ Local 63, with a membership of 7,000, at its last meeting voted unconditgnal support to the Workers Party didates, re- jecting the stand of the national ex- ecutive body. In Rochester, the Farmer-Labor party of the city, which includes in its affiliated bodies the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, went on record in support of Foster and Gitlow. In Chicago, at a conference of the MIli- nois Labor party, the Communist candidates were indorsed by all the delegates present, among whom were representatives of Local 269 (which, as stated above, later ratified this ac- tion), and Local 39, one of the largest unions in the organization. This lat- |ter local has not yet taken up the question of indorsement of candidates, |but the militants stand an excellent |chance of reaffirming the principle of the class struggle by rejecting the “fighting faker” from Wisconsin and points east. Schlossberg Kicking, Too. It should not be thought that this wave of dissent is entirely confined |to the rank and file, altho it receives its backbone and spirit therefrom. The latest news is that Joseph Schlossberg, general secretary-treas- urer of the Amalgamated, has de- clined to be a part to this betrayal of the idea of the class struggle upon which the union has always stood. +A clean bill of health to LaFollette (Continued on page 2.) - UNMASK HYPOCRITICAL KRESGE AS BOSS OF COOLIE WORKERS; GIRLS AVERAGED $7.52 A WEEK By OWEN STIRLING. (Special to The Dally Worker) DETROIT, August 17.—Sebastian S, Kresge, multi-million- aire owner of a chain of five-and-ten-cent stores, national Anti- Saloon League leader and extensive contributor to charity, stands publicly unmasked now as an octopus fattening on thie {and calling on other wealthy men to lives of girls and women slaves. | P®Y for “rescue homes” and hospitals Senator James Couzens, has made|for them. public correspondence between him- self and Kresge in which he accuses Charity But Not Wages. Kresge, according to the corre Kresge of driving girls and women on| spondence, wrote to Senator Couzens, the streets thru hopelessly low wages, nll nent semen nile di (Continued on page 5.)